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Banaticus
Let's imagine a magician who's had two cybereyes implanted. He learns the Shapechange spell and casts it on himself, changing himself into a goose.*
QUOTE
This spell does not transform clothing and equipment.
So, what happens to the cybereyes? Is there now a goose with two cybereyes rolling around at its feet? What if it had been a cranial bomb? Is it still inside the magician's head? Is it the same size now or smaller or did the magician's head just explode? Does any cyber/biowear transform with the character? If the magician had really obvious cybereyes, does the magician still have really obvious cybereyes as a goose or do they look like regular goose eyes? Do the eyes still retain their full functionality or is the magician blind?

*[What a silly goose of a magician, eh?]
Trigger
The cyberware would change with the magician since they are a part of him, paid for with his essence, though I would say that any extremely high tech system, like varying cybereye/ ear systems may not work properly while shapechanges.
Oracle
I don't think that the character's cyber works at all when he is transformed.

He does not lose his cyberware, but I find it hard to believe that all those implants are transformed to variants fitting to the physics and size of a goose.

The cranial bomb of course brings me to an interesting idea...that's a possibility to stop the bomb from detonating! biggrin.gif
Kesslan
So you mean I cant turn the .001 essence streem sammie into a cyber enhanced warthog of death?
Banaticus
I have a Guild Wars character with a Warthog of Death. Farmer Hoggit, with his warpig, Babe. eek.gif

So, if the cyber/bio stuff all changes with him because he paid Essence for it, is its presence just as obvious? Let's say that he has four obvious cyberlimbs and an obvious cybertorso. I don't know how he can still cast magic, but let's say that he can. Once he changes into the goose, does he still look cybered? Is he essentially a silvery metallic goose or is he a fluffy feathered goose? cyber.gif
ornot
I'd go with normal, mundane looking goose for simplicities sake.
Moon-Hawk
Here's my take: Shapechange turns you into a goose. (or whatever). What is "you"? "You" are all your meat, and anything paid for with essence, since anything paid for with essence is now part of "you", magically speaking. So your eye is turned into a goose eye. If your eye happens to be made of metal, fine, your (metal) eye is still turned into a goose eye. Not a metal eye, a goose eye.
In other words, I don't allow cyber enhanced warthogs (or geese) of death.
Unfortunately this would not escape a cranial bomb, as they are not paid for with essence.
YMMV
Banaticus
It seems then as though, in your games, a person can have cranial bombs installed without losing Essence? Not to hijack my own thread, but can... other things... be installed in the body or in the brain without losing Essence?
Moon-Hawk
QUOTE (Banaticus)
It seems then as though, in your games, a person can have cranial bombs installed without losing Essence? Not to hijack my own thread, but can... other things... be installed in the body or in the brain without losing Essence?

Yes, in my game characters don't lose essence for cranial bombs because in my book on page 331 cranial bombs are listed as having 0 essence cost. This has always been the case, in all editions of SR as far as I am aware. Sorry if that was snarky. I've got that out of my system and I'll try to be more helpful.

The reason is that cranial bombs have no neural connections, do not interface with the user in any way (except when they explode), and do not augment or change the user in any way (again, except when they explode). You lose essence for being connected to something or (in the case of things like bone lacing) being augmented or otherwise affected by something, not for having something in you. Similarly, you don't lose essence when someone *ahem* implants a bullet in you. It's not cyberware, it's just a thing that happens to be occupying space inside your skin, just like a cranial bomb. You don't lose essence when you lose an arm, you lose essence when you install a cyberarm. It's a subtle, but very important, difference. The exact nature of essence has always been poorly and/or inconsistently defined in SR, but a few concepts are relatively constant.
So to answer your question, lots of things could be implanted without costing essence. If you want a matchbox car implanted in your brain, there's no reason for that to cost essence. If you want a computer memory chip implanted in you (as in, for smuggling purposes, with no connections to your brain or anything like that) then there's no reason for it to cost essence either, but as soon as you connect it to your brain in a usable fasion, there's an essence cost. For things like bone lacing that you aren't "connected" to, those still cost essence because they change your physical performance in dramatic and noticable ways.
As a rule of thumb: if it's something you're aware of, either because you have direct control over it or because it has a significant effect on you (significant as defined by significant enough to warrant a game mechanical effect) then you are different enough from your natural self to warrant essence loss. If it is something that you have no way of being aware of short of x-ray or CAT scan, then it probably shouldn't cost essence.
Does that help?
Banaticus
And yet every internal storage space, no matter how small, requires an expenditure of essence (except for teeth, but we're drilling/filling those on a regular basis).

It seems as though being aware of the cyberwear is the primary element in whether a person loses essence. If a person underwent psychotropic conditioning at the same time as the surgery so that they weren't able to even think about having cyberwear and, in fact, didn't know that they now had cybereyes (since everyone can see in infrared and ultrasound and regular vision normally), would a person still lose essence?
Demerzel
QUOTE (Moon-Hawk)
Unfortunately this would not escape a cranial bomb, as they are not paid for with essence.

I don't see how this wouldn't be even better than saving you from detonation. If since it is not payed for with essence it will not transform and therefore abracadabra you're saved, and your cranial bomb is not explanted rather summarily.

Perhaps having an essence cost of 0 is different than say using a dash or n/a in it's place. It's implanted, it has an essence cost, it just does not affect your total.

Now what about capacity items? If I have an item added to my cyberarm using capacity I don't pay with essence. Should that drop out?
RunnerPaul
QUOTE (Banaticus)
And yet every internal storage space, no matter how small, requires an expenditure of essence (except for teeth, but we're drilling/filling those on a regular basis).

In short, implanting storage compartment to the body is going to involve altering skin and muscle tissue in some fashion to allow the storage compartment to be accessible from the outside. As a consequence, there's also an impact to the nervous system, which results in an essence cost.

Now if we're just talking about sticking a box somewhere in the body, that can only be accessed through another surgery, then that should have the same essence cost as a cranial bomb: none.

Moon-Hawk
QUOTE (Demerzel)
QUOTE (Moon-Hawk @ Jan 4 2007, 07:18 AM)
Unfortunately this would not escape a cranial bomb, as they are not paid for with essence.

I don't see how this wouldn't be even better than saving you from detonation. If since it is not payed for with essence it will not transform and therefore abracadabra you're saved, and your cranial bomb is not explanted rather summarily.

Perhaps having an essence cost of 0 is different than say using a dash or n/a in it's place. It's implanted, it has an essence cost, it just does not affect your total.

Now what about capacity items? If I have an item added to my cyberarm using capacity I don't pay with essence. Should that drop out?

I don't really understand what you're saying with the first part, sorry.
I'm saying that since a cranial bomb isn't paid for with essence, it isn't transformed by shapechange. i.e. if you've got a cranial bomb and cybereyes and you turn into a goose, you're a goose with regular goose eyes and a cranial bomb. If the bomb goes off then your little goose head explodes, so you haven't escaped the bomb. Assuming the bomb doesn't go off, then when you turn back into a metahuman, you're back to your regular cybereyes and cranial bomb.

As for your capacity question, if something is installed in a cyberlimb and takes up capacity, than it has become integrated into the cyberlimb and become a part of the cyberlimb, which is a part of you since it was paid for with essence, so it transforms.

However, something that was stashed in a smuggling compartment in a cyberlimb wouldn't change, because while the storange compartment is part of the limb and therefore part of you, its contents are not.

This is all IMHO and YMMV, of course. smile.gif
Demerzel
QUOTE (Moon-Hawk)
However, something that was stashed in a smuggling compartment in a cyberlimb wouldn't change, because while the storange compartment is part of the limb and therefore part of you, its contents are not.

So if my cyberleg had a smuggling compartment with a gun in it and I transformed into a goose would I be a goose with a gun in my leg?

If so how does that affect my movement rate? What happens if someone with a smartlink hacks the gun in my leg and shoots it?

If no what happens to it? Does it fall out onto the ground in the conversion process? If it falls out onto the ground in the conversion process why doesn't the cranial bomb?
RunnerPaul
QUOTE (Moon-Hawk)
I'm saying that since a cranial bomb isn't paid for with essence, it isn't transformed by shapechange. i.e. if you've got a cranial bomb and cybereyes and you turn into a goose, you're a goose with regular goose eyes and a cranial bomb.

The obvious problem with that being a crainal bomb sized and shaped to fit inside a human skull just might not fit inside a goose head. What then?
Eben McKay
QUOTE (RunnerPaul)
QUOTE (Moon-Hawk @ Jan 4 2007, 01:13 PM)
I'm saying that since a cranial bomb isn't paid for with essence, it isn't transformed by shapechange.  i.e. if you've got a cranial bomb and cybereyes and you turn into a goose, you're a goose with regular goose eyes and a cranial bomb.

The obvious problem with that being a crainal bomb sized and shaped to fit inside a human skull just might not fit inside a goose head. What then?

Then you're a goose with a goose-proportionate cranial bomb.

As there is no obvious answer in the book for what happens when a person with a cranial bomb (let alone any cyberware) is shapechanged, it's up to each and every GM to decide how they would handle it.

From a game balance side, I'd say that the bomb remains active and able to detonate in whatever form the host is in.

From a logical side, I'd say the cranial bomb is transformed and inert along with all the other cyberware in the shapechanged person. Kinda like the person went into stasis somewhere in another dimension while their consciousness occupied the form of an animal.

Another question is: since the mental attributes of the shapechanged person remain unaffected, does cyberware that raises mental attributes still work? How about mental-attribute-affecting bioware?

All this trouble due to one spell. Jeez!
RunnerPaul
QUOTE (Eben McKay)
QUOTE (RunnerPaul @ Jan 4 2007, 01:20 PM)
QUOTE (Moon-Hawk @ Jan 4 2007, 01:13 PM)
I'm saying that since a cranial bomb isn't paid for with essence, it isn't transformed by shapechange.  i.e. if you've got a cranial bomb and cybereyes and you turn into a goose, you're a goose with regular goose eyes and a cranial bomb.

The obvious problem with that being a crainal bomb sized and shaped to fit inside a human skull just might not fit inside a goose head. What then?

Then you're a goose with a goose-proportionate cranial bomb.

So, it is transformed by the spell then. One vote for it isn't, one vote for it is. Is anyone keeping score somewhere?


QUOTE
All this trouble due to one spell.

We could start throwing Turn to Goo into the discussion as well. That spell specifically excludes cyberware, calling it "unliving" -- a viewpoint that totally discounts the "if you've paid essence for it it's part of your living aura" philosophy.
Moon-Hawk
I ignore that part of "turn to goo". Didn't that get errata'ed, anyway? Maybe just in my dreams.
As for gun in compartment, I'd rule that it just falls out, since there's an external port there.
As for the bomb being too big to fit into the skull, well, that could be bad if it ever actually came up. There's probably going to be some significant damage there. But honestly, I don't expect a problem from people who go around implanting bombs in people so that they can turn them into geese and crack their heads open. If it was a PC, I'd say sorry you shouldn't turn into a goose, you have a cranial bomb and it would break your head. If it's an NPC casting a spell against the PC, it's going to be Fireball not "Turn to Goose".
Look, anytime there a spell as open-ended as shapechange it's going to require some GM discretion. I come up with my rules-of-thumb to help keep things reasonably fair and predictable. It has a sort of internal consistency, at least for me.
If you want to pick at it and question why I would rule that a gun in a compartment falls out but a cranial bomb doesn't, the bottom line is because I find it to be simple, balanced, and logically consistent enough. No solution will avoid 100% of the weird situations and problems, but I find that, for me, my way circumvents the majority of the issues. But as I've said, there is no official answers, so if you'd like to run it a different way, feel free. I'm not about to tell you you're wrong.
ornot
I think it's important to bear in mind that this is a game so all the mechanics aren't necessarily going to make perfect sense. The smuggling compartment/gun issue is a tricky one. I would personally suggest that it is rendered inert by the magic, but that's just me and my desire for keeping things simple.

I've never been entirely sure what purpose the 'turn to goo' spell even serves. I imagine that 'ware is mentioned so people don't try to target a cyberlimb or something, but it does lead one to question whether this means all an afflicted character's 'ware remains 'ware-like while their body turns to goo. If the body forms a semi solid blancmange type material, that makes sense (and also allows someone to dig around in the blancmange before pulling a character's wired 3 out and dropping the spell, an interesting form of torture). If the body turns into something kinda runny then any 'ware not converted would be left sitting in a pool of goo, and then what happens when the spell stops being sustained?
Moon-Hawk
Ignore turn-to-goo for a second.
It has always been the case, and AFAIK is still the case, that magic functions on a holistic level. What a thing is is important to magic. As far as magic is concerned, there is a fundamental difference between a thing and a part of a thing. You can use magic to target a person, but not a person's arm. If you remove blood from someone, you can still use that blood to cast a spell against them or find them with ritual magic, because it is/was a part of them. You can't use the heal spell on one wound while ignoring another, you just heal the entire person (although perhaps incompletely) Once cyberware has been paid for with essence it is a part of you, the holistic being that is you, and magic no longer makes any distinction.
The only only exception to this rule is in the fluff description of turn-to-goo. As such, I have house-ruled that turn-to-goo turns you entirely to goo, cyberware and all. Called shots with indirect combat spells are not a violation of this rule, as the magic is creating the bolt of acid (or whatever it is), which you are then making a called shot with, but the magic is not targeting the arm, the magic is making the substance.

This all makes perfect sense to me, and is logically consistent with my understanding of how SR magic works. If it doesn't work for you, house-rule until it does. smile.gif
ornot
That is a sensible way to look at it. Like I said, I think the only reason 'ware was explicitely mentioned in the 'turn to goo' description was to discourage folk from trying to use it to target a particular location. Of course I could be wrong.

Of course I still don't really see the point of 'turn to goo'. It inflicts no damage by itself and must be maintained. If the target retained awareness and limited motility, it could be used as a means to infiltrate a location, but simply as a means to restrain an individual temporarily? There are better ways.

Of course, I presume that the quantity of goo is proportional to the size of the individual, but what if you were to shapechange someone into a small creature and then turn that to goo? And then drop the shapechange spell? All a bit weird, but unless your players are quite strange that's unlikely to happen!

/hijack
Demerzel
I think there is some sort of size change limitation in shapechange.
ornot
The degree of size change is determined by the force of the spell IIRC. It seems to be principally to prevent a weedy mage shapechanging into a hugely strong and tough bear.
RunnerPaul
One very clean way of handling it is to treat the auras of any non-living material that is entirely enclosed by the living aura of the target as being subsumed into that living aura for the duration of the spell. That way, you don't have to worry about 0-Essence implants like cortex bombs, and bone pins, or worry about your last 72 hours worth of meals that are slowly being turned to excrement in your intestines.
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